


In Which Sam and Cas Pair Socks

by elizajane



Series: Panty 'verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Castiel has discovered ginger ale, Dean likes 'Charmed', Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Humor, Laundry, M/M, Sam overthinks things once again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. Oh, and did I mention Sam finds Dean’s panties in the wash? That too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Sam and Cas Pair Socks

**Author's Note:**

> TGIF people! Here, have some fic for your weekend :)
> 
> Also, why is it that Sam’s reaction to Dean and Cas as a couple is endlessly amusing?

At first, Sam thinks the black satin panties have gotten mixed in with their laundry by mistake. The industrial-sized washers and dryers have a habit of eating your socks and coughing back someone else’s lingerie like a peace offering.

It’s a Thursday evening in Bozeman, Montana, and he lost the coin toss with Dean over who was responsible for taking the trunk load of dirty laundry to the Mainstreet Wash-O-Mat three blocks down from their motel. Dean is back at the motel watching _Charmed_ re-runs. He claimed they were soothing eye-candy but Sam suspected Dean insisted they watch the show largely so he could harass Cas mercilessly about being Leo to his Piper.

For some reason, the teasing wound Cas up until he couldn’t sit still and then Sam had to either sit there while the sexual tension ratcheted to unbearable levels or make excuses and escape to his room next door so his brother and angel-in-law were no longer forced to have eyesex from opposite ends of the couch.

Instead, they could have sex-sex in -- but that was as far as Sam’s been willing to go with the speculation (though sometimes, when the bedroom walls are particularly thin, there hasn’t been much speculation involved).

Sometimes, Sam suspects one of the Enochian symbols Castiel etched into his sternum actually reads: “Fuck My Life.”

This time, though, Cas has opted to join Sam at the laundromat so as to learn the mysterious ways of coin-operated washers and dryers: Operation Teaching Cas to Pass as Human, part 238.

Sam’s folding the latest load on of those long, high formica tables at the end of their row of machines when Cas pops back from his trip to the 7-11, a bag of Sunchips (requested by Sam) and bottle of ginger ale (Cas’s latest acquired taste) in his hands.

“Do you require assistance Sam?” He asks like it’s a vampire beheading rather than a clothing sort.

“Uh -- sure, Cas. You wanna take the shirts?”

Cas slides in beside Sam at the table and moves a couple of piles to the right in order to clear a work space. Seeing the black panties shoved to one side (there’s a lost and found bin by the front counter), Cas picks them up, smoothes and folds them, and drops them on the stack of already-folded boxers stacked by Dean’s collection of jeans and tees.

Sam blinks.

 _I will not ask I will not ask I will not_ \-- “Cas?”

“Yes Sam?”

“I don’t -- think those belong to us? I was gonna drop ‘em in the lost and found on our way out.”

“Oh; no. They’re Dean’s.”

“ _Dean’s_ \--?” It’s out of his mouth before the self-preservation filter can kick in, a half-stifled squawk of surprise. Not that -- but -- he knows that swinging both ways like Dean does in no way suggests that -- or at least, doesn’t have to mean that -- not that he thinks it’s wrong, he just -- Dean? His brother _Dean_? Like -- dudliest dudebro who ever lived? Of the scruffy jeans and Goodwill t-shirts and battered “I’m too cool for school” jackets?

 _Dean_?

“Dean’s.” Cas confirms, turning back to his assigned task of sorting and folding the tangle of shirts (three guys, all of whom have a penchant for layering cotton tops, leads to a _lot_ of shirts to fold when they finally settle someplace threat-free enough to catch up on housekeeping).

“Oh.” Because what else is there to say, really? Sam steals another look at the panties, sitting innocently (innocently!) on top of the Iron Man boxers Sam had gotten Dean last Christmas as a joke.

He _will not_ ask.

He will not ask if it’s just the panties or if, like, his brother has . . . other things? He tries, and fails, to picture Dean in skirts, or those preppy little t-shirts Jessica used to be fond of.

He used to know a guy at Stanford, Paul, who moonlighted (and sometimes daylighted) as Marie. Paul had been a quiet, fairly self-assured student, pre-law like Sam, and while there were days she’d show up in class in skirts and sweaters and be _Marie_ there were as many or more days he spent as Paul in cargo pants and polo shirts.

Or there was that kid in his Econ class -- Tad? -- with a wicked sense of humor and a good head for numbers who’d slouched through Spring semester in red Converse and a newsboy cap. One of Jess’s sorority sisters had been obnoxious about the guy one drunken evening in March because Tad had started his freshman year as Francesca.

So, like, it wasn’t as if Sam saw women’s panties and his brain went straight to _Priscilla Queen of the Desert_.

Not that -- he tells himself hastily -- not that that would be _bad_ , a bad thing; Dean’s his brother -- sister? sibling? -- and as long as Dean’s not on one of his self-destructive kicks (something Sam trusts Cas not to enable) then Sam’s gonna support him in whatever.

He feels a little dizzy with vertigo at the thought of Dean in heels.

 _Jesus_ , maybe this was a whole side of Dean he’d been afraid to share with Sam because Sam was a shit little brother who always thought he knew better (he _did_ think this, he knows that about himself, even though he only really did know better maybe -- eighty? -- percent of the time).

John’s relationship with masculinity had, after all, been _complicated_. Dean’s bisexuality had been as deep in the closet as he could force it -- not that Sam hadn’t read between the lines, but words like “gay” and “bi” and phrases like, “I’m into guys,” or “Dude, that guy’s ass?” had not passed Dean’s lips until John was six months or more in Hell and the set of Dean’s shoulders had started to relax, micromillimeter by fucking micromillimeter.

Not that Dean hadn’t mourned his father’s passing -- but like Sam’d said: it’s been complicated.

So -- what. Was Dean moonlighting as a girl? Or -- _was_ a girl?

And how the _hell_ had Sam not known about this? Was it -- did it have something to do with -- how long -- ?

“I bought them as a gift, back in Eugene.” Cas holds out the opened bag of Sunchips, leaning back against the table in a pose that imitates Dean when he’s being casually considering on the topic before them. Castiel spoils the effect, however, by giving Sam a look that says _I may not have the power of Heaven behind me any longer but I can hear you thinking Sam Winchester_.

Ah, well; takes one to know one, Sam thinks grumpily.

“A gift?” He asks, since Cas clearly means him to follow up on the matter.

“A gift,” Castiel confirms, setting down the bag of chips so he can twist open the top of his ginger ale.

“I --” Sam’s brain suddenly presents him with an image of Cas passing Dean a wrapped box, with the lingerie nestled inside in pink tissue paper. He’d bought Jess a camisole from Victoria’s Secret once -- for an anniversary maybe? -- and he remembers the salesgirl practically spraying it down with perfume.

His brain maybe shorts out for a second or two, because when it comes back online Castiel is mid-sentence: “ . . . Rhonda, and I recalled how sad he had been to lose the first pair, so --”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down there a minute, buddy -- ‘first pair’? Rhonda -- you talking about Rhonda _Hurley_? From Springfield?” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers, peers down the row of machines in hope that one of their loads will have stopped so he’ll have an excuse to escape from the conversation and re-group. He hasn’t thought about Springfield in ages -- he’d been pissed at John for years after that for whisking him and Dean away before he’d had a chance to compete in the Missouri History Day state finals.

Castiel takes a careful sip of his ginger ale -- he’s still getting used to carbonated beverages -- and studies Sam with the quiet intensity Sam has learned usually precedes an info dump. The kind that explains some things and fails to explain many other things.

Sam has learned it’s fruitless to short-circuit these conversations, so he palms the bag of chips and hitches himself up on the laundry counter, waiting. He might as well get comfortable while he prepares to hear how his brother’s been a closet cross-dresser for the past howevermany years. Since Missouri? That’d put it close to a decade.

_How could he not have known?_

“Dean is -- concerned you will think less of him because of this,” Castiel starts carefully, in that tone of voice that tells Sam Cas thinks Dean is being dense but hasn’t been able to talk Dean out of his position. Which -- fair enough. Sam winced, thinking about how he’d reacted when Dean’d ‘fessed up to an kinda-maybe interest in guys. Not that his reaction hadn’t been _totally_ justified given the circumstances ( _“What? Since when, Dean? How do you expect me to react when I see you makin’ out with a guy on the dance floor, okay? Of course I thought he was a siren! A little warning might have helped man, so thanks for that!”_ ) but Dean had reacted by diving so far back into the closet for over a month that Sam was afraid Dean was gonna pimp himself out to every woman who came within a six-foot radius just to prove he was manly enough for his little bro.

Well, prove he was manly enough for _John_ , really, but given John wasn’t there any longer to take the fallout Sam was the one left trying to convince his brother he didn’t have to hide any longer and wishing he could knee John in the ‘nads once a day for leaving Sam to cope with the long shadow of the old man’s raging homophobia.

“Think less of him for what, Cas? Wearing women’s underwear?” Sam gestures with the bag of chips. “Has he forgotten we’re in the middle of the apocalypse? That, uh, he _rose from the dead_? That, I dunno, he’s had my back so many times I can’t even _begin_ to -- including when I didn’t --”

“I did not say it was a rational fear, Sam,” Castiel quirks an eyebrow up at Sam. “I merely offer this as information. I am learning that even irrational fears can be very powerful and lasting ones.”

“So what you’re saying is I shouldn’t visibly freak out the day he decides to wear a sundress out in public?” Sam quips in what he knows is an utterly transparent fishing expedition for further information.

Cas turns this over behind his eyes for half a beat and then he says, “Dean has never expressed the desire for a sundress.”

“Oh,” Sam says like this answers the question somehow, even though it doesn’t.

Down the aisle a dryer _pings!_ the end of a cycle and Sam slides down off the table. “Hold that thought -- come help me get those last loads for folding.”

Cas dutifully sets down his ginger ale and trots after Sam.

When they’re back at the table sorting the final two loads of freshly-tumbled clothes, still nearly too-hot to the touch, Sam tries again: “Cas -- how does this have anything to do with Rhonda Hurley?”

“Rhonda gave Dean a pair of panties,” Cas explains patiently, shaking out a crumpled flannel shirt and fastidiously buttoning it up before folding in the sleeves and then the body in thirds, like he’s assembling a freakin’ department store display. “Her panties.”

Sam blinks. “Okay …?”

“Mm.” Cas makes a sound in the back of his throat as if he’s suppressing words that almost escaped, then says, “Dean tells me you did not know they had lain together. Once, just before your father returned to Springfield and took you back on the road. She gave him the panties in fun and they became -- hmm,” again Cas pauses, seemingly searching for the most appropriate word -- “a totem. An object imbued with power, protective power, through the belief of the wearer.” He pauses. “I have actually never thought to explain this to Dean. He thinks his association of the underclothes with safety was purely imaginative, when in fact it was -- it became literal, over time, through his belief. And because of the -- mm -- restorative love -- of the time he and Rhonda had together.”

“Protective panties.” Sam _will not use this against Dean will not_ \-- who the hell is he kidding;  _of course_ he will.

“Yes.” Cas nods, reflectively. “I will have to remember to tell Dean about this.” He locates the mate of the sock he is holding and folds them together the way Dean has shown him to, one sock turned inside out around the other to make neat ball of elasticized cotton.

There’s a minute or two of silent side-by-side sorting and folding.

So -- not cross-dressing, then, or gender dysphoria. No sister where Sam’d always thought he had a brother, which is -- he tries not to feel guilty about this -- a little bit of a relief because it had been disorienting and a little bit scary there for a minute or two to imagine that somehow he’d missed something _this basic_ about who Dean was.

“But -- wait. You said _you_ bought him the black ones.”

“Yes. These do not have the same protective properties as the previous pair, but that is not the point. I have already given Dean -- as well as you -- every bit of protection I am capable of, and will continue to defend you with my very essence until we are all no more.”

A few months living 24/7 with Castiel, Sam reflects, and this sort of conversation becomes the new normal.

“Right, so -- what _was_ the --” did he want to ask this? -- “the point?”

“They were a gift,” Cas repeats, and for a moment Sam think he’s not going to elaborate. Then, “I -- I also remember Rhonda. And -- when Dean sent me to purchase him a new pair of jeans at the clothing store I found myself by the section in which they keep the women’s undergarments. And I remembered Rhonda, and the pair of panties, and how Dean used to walk with such -- hmm -- confidence? -- when he wore them beneath his pants, the smile that used to pass across his lips when he moved and felt them sliding against his skin--”

Sam hold up a hand, “Seriously, man. TMI.”

This is an acronym Castiel has had explained to him by both Sam and Dean multiple times, so he does an abrupt verbal halt.

“So what happen to the first pair? Dean wear ‘em out?” Dean is _so_ never gonna hear the end of this. How the _hell_ did he wear them under Dad’s nose for -- oh.

_Oh._

“The Roc in El Paso.” He remembers how the bird had wheeled in more sharply than any of them had anticipated, caught Dean in a long, angry swipe from hip to shoulder on its way out of the canyon. The medivac helicopter that almost hadn’t made it in time. He remember the way John had looked -- white with terror beneath the desert dust -- his hands pressed to Dean’s chest ( _C’mon Dean, stay with me Dean, they’re gonna fix you up boy, you just stay with me now_ ). Remembers how he, Sam, had been left behind as the chopper rose up into the sky, had had to drive the Impala solo to the University Medical Center thirty miles away -- all the while wondering if this would be the time Dean didn’t make it.

He remembers the silence in the recovery room that had greeted him when he’d bluffed and flirted and weaseled his way past the nurses station and found Dean groggy but conscious in a clean bed, I.V. drip to help with the pain and blood loss, and John close-faced propped in a chair where he could keep an eye on the window and door simultaneously.

“I thought -- I thought Dad was angry at Dean for gettin’ hurt,” Sam mutters.

“I believe John’s reaction was -- hmm -- amplified -- by the situation,” Cas acknowledges. “Dean had lost a considerable amount of blood by the time the helicopter arrived at the hospital. Under those circumstances, your father was not -- in the best frame of mind to be -- open to new aspects of who Dean was, and is.”

“Fuck Dad, really.” Sam runs a hand through his hair, resisting the momentary urge to punch something, _hard_.

“He was a -- _driven_ man,” Castiel concedes. “I confess there have been times, watching over Dean, when I have wished harm upon John Winchester.” He pauses, then ducks his head in a gesture Sam interprets as embarrassment -- but which might also have been hiding a smile. “If I had been more inclined to disregard the orders of Heaven, then, he might have felt more direct expressions of my dissatisfaction.”

Sam blinks. “Um, yeah. I think I see where you’re coming from.” He tosses the last flannel shirt onto the clean pile and then drops the lot into one of the cheap plastic baskets they keep in the back of the Impala for the stuff that needs washing. They’ll haul everything back to the motel and have a sorting party to make sure it’s all packed up where it’s supposed to be.

They’re hitting the road before sunrise the next morning.

“So,” he says, eyes on the road, as they’re on their driving back to the motel. “You bought Dean the panties” -- _and clearly he’s_ wearing _the panties_ ; though Sam wasn’t going to let those words pass his lips because: TMI -- “because he lost something you believe was powerful, and good, when the first pair was destroyed.”

“And because I want Dean to honor his memories, to learn not to be ashamed of those things in his past which are _good_ , have been good for him -- the people who have been good _to_ him.” Cas frowns out the windshield. “He tells me that although John is no longer here to speak -- or not speak -- to him, he continues to hear his father’s voice.”

Sam snorted, “Yeah. I just bet.”

He thinks about this, as they pull into the parking lot. About Dean and Rhonda -- he’s glad to know they had a fling, even if it had been short-lived --; about the courage it must have taken for Dean to keep and wear Rhonda’s panties because he wanted to, despite knowing John would go ballistic if he found them; about what it means that Dean has a boyfriend who _gets_ this on some level; about how they’re traveling toward -- and desperately trying to avert -- the apocalypse and his brother Dean is for once so comfortable in his own skin that wearing women’s black satin panties are helping him feel safe, and loved.

“You’re a good guy, Cas.” Sam says, mostly to the steering wheel as he pulls into their parking space.

Castiel looks at him levelly as he unbuckles his seatbelt. “I do not know about ‘good,’” he says mildly, “I only know that I love.”

Right then.

Sam kicks open the door to their suite and finds Dean dozing in front of the television, which has moved on from _Charmed_ to _Smallville_ and the constipated non-acting of Tom Welling.

“Huh--?” Dean jerks awake reaching for his knife, then relaxes back onto the bed as soon as his hind brain registers _brother_ and _boyfriend_ not to mention the smell of clean laundry.

“You guys bring home the bacon while you’re at it?”

Cas frowns, “You didn’t say --”

“Dinner, Cas. Dinner.” Dean huffs a laugh and rubs a hand across his face as Sam says, “There’s a Wild Harvest across the parking lot, I thought I’d --”

And then Dean takes in the laundry baskets in their arms, and the fact that Sam’s carrying the one in which the stack of clean boxers are sitting on top with the very-much-not-boxers scrap of black folded on top.

His shoulders go tight and he looks sharply up at Sam.

Sam rolls his eyes and shrugs, dropping the basket on the floor and looking over at Cas.

Cas, who’s been watching Dean, tips his head thoughtfully and then glances back at Sam and raises an eyebrow.

Sam drops the keys to the Impala on the dresser by the bed and checks the back pocket of his pants for his wallet. “Got any requests?”

Dean pushes himself to his feet and passes Sam on the way to the bathroom, giving him a light punch on the shoulder, “No tofu, little bro.”

“Cool,” Sam, punching him lightly back.

“Someday,” Cas says thoughtfully, “I think I would like to try ‘tofu’ . . . ”

And just like that, Sam knows they’re gonna be fine.


End file.
